Mini, spoiler free review of *Witch King*, by Martha Wells [Fantasy]
Kai is a powerful demon who awakens outside of his human body to find he's been trapped unconscious in a tomb for over a year. His long-time friends are also missing. He has to figure out who has done this, and why. The story alternates between this “present" timeline, and a "past” timeline that starts with him as a young demon in his newly-gifted human body. Wells has a real knack for creating worlds with interesting rules (far from the cookie cutter tropes of some fantasy), and then exploring the boundaries of those rules. I enjoyed it, but also felt like there was an odd detachment to the story - like there wasn't a lot of emotional attachment to the characters. As an aside, Wells has a penchant for making subtle or not-so-subtle commentary on our society and the prejudices in it. As examples in this one, demons are referred to by the gender of their demon selves, not the gender of the body they're in. Some societies have gender neutral clothing, but where it's gendered it's the men who wear skirts and women who wear pants. One culture is referred to as confusing because they stick to two genders.
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Sounds interesting! Haven’t read Martha Wells besides the Murder Bot series. And really liked those. Is this part of a series or a standalone book?
Well, it's recent - 2023 - and there's a sequel called Queen Demon that came out in 2025. I don't know if she plans to write more in the universe, and I don't actual know if it's a true sequel or just a story set in the same universe.